The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences’ Prof Glyn Roberts was an invited symposium speaker at the International Congress of Applied Psychology in Montreal, Canada. Glyn’s talk was entitled, “Motivation strategies for sustained behavior change in active lifestyle interventions: The EuroFIT project”. The meeting was held from June 26-30, 2018.

The Portuguese Football Federation, as a sponsor of the EuroFIT Portuguese pilots and to establish the social norm in Portugal by being an example to football clubs, hosted the EuroFIT program at the City of Football facilities (home of the Portuguese National team). Eighteen participants, overweight and sedentary men, managers and staff from small football clubs, participated in the program. The feedback was extremely positive!

From the coaches’ point of view:

“It was an exceptional experience. All the participants increased their levels of physical activity and improved their eating habits. If they maintain this lifestyle, they’ll have a healthier life.”

Participants were also very satisfied for having this opportunity:

“Being here, in the City of Football, in the place where the Portuguese “stars” also play, being able to enjoy this atmosphere and to know some “legends” of the Portuguese football is incredible.”

http://eurofitfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/EuroFIT_cityoffootball.jpg360540euro_adminhttp://eurofitfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/eurofit_logo_small_340x156.pngeuro_admin2018-07-25 13:03:282018-07-24 13:27:56EuroFIT at the FPF City of Football facilities

EuroFIT recently featured in Dependencias Magazine, an institutional magazine that typically publishes news on topics relating to poor health habits and alcohol consumption.

However, the EuroFIT project was described in detail and exemplified as a set of best practices to be followed in interventional programs with the potential to influence behaviours, besides physical activity. This media coverage it is a spinoff of the already reported EuroFIT invitation to be a part of the National Forum for Alcohol and Health (FNAS), hosted by SICAD, a Department of the Portuguese Ministry of Health for Addictive Behaviours. For details on this alliance, please click here.

http://eurofitfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/lisboa_150x150_bw.jpg150150euro_adminhttp://eurofitfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/eurofit_logo_small_340x156.pngeuro_admin2018-07-11 16:55:522018-07-11 16:55:52Update from our EuroFIT partners at the University of Lisbon

“I feel so much healthier, I have continued to lose weight but now I can put my shorts on for the first time in a while,” he said.

“I have lost the equivalent to 16 bags of sugar so EuroFIT has certainly worked for me! I saw the programme advertised on Twitter and it appealed to me straight away as I have been a Blackburn Rovers supporter for 54 years.

“The programme has been a challenge and it has helped me focus on my diet and fitness. It has been all about taking small steps because quite often by taking too much on, there is a tendency to give up after a few weeks.

“The [EuroFIT] programme was super and the staff at Blackburn Rovers Community Trust worked really hard to make sure the sessions were fun. We had a wide range of people continuously attending and it has helped not only change people’s lives but add a few years on to their lives.”

Following the successful delivery of their first EuroFIT programme earlier this year, Leicester City Community Trust will begin their second programme later this month.

Healthy Stadia alongside partners from the EuroFIT steering group have been working hard to develop a licensing model for clubs – and Leicester City is one of the first clubs in Europe to take advantage of this.

LCFC Community Trust will be recruiting fans with a BMI of 27 and above to take part in their second programme which will get underway with an information session on 26 June 2018 at King Power Stadium, Leicester. You can read more about the Leicester EuroFIT programme below.

http://eurofitfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Screen-Shot-2015-01-06-at-16.07.43.png147150euro_adminhttp://eurofitfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/eurofit_logo_small_340x156.pngeuro_admin2018-06-11 16:32:162018-06-11 16:59:16Leicester City Football Club celebrates Men’s Health Week with EuroFIT roll-out

“I am a postdoctoral researcher within the Faculty of Science, Health Economics and Health Technology Assessment at Vrije Universitat in Amsterdam. Prior to moving to Amsterdam, I graduated from the London School of Economics/London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine joint MSc programme “Health Policy, Planning and Financing”. I worked for one year as a White Helmet for the Caritas Brasileira Regional do Piaui in Brazil, and for two years as a research fellow at Bocconi University in Milan.

As you can see, I love travelling, meeting new people and discovering new cultures. I also love my postdoc research, of which EuroFIT is a part!

I am originally from Rome. My undergraduate degree was in International Relations and Diplomatic Affairs, from the University of Bologna. The third year I passed in Lisbon, thanks to the Erasmus Exchange program. After obtaining my BSc I went to work for the Italian Chamber of Ministries in Piaui, Brazil. Working in Brazil influenced my interests profoundly, leading me to develop a marked orientation towards health-care issues. This is why I decided to pursue the MSc joint programme in Health Policy, Planning and Financing (Health Economics) at The London School of Economics and The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

I did my PhD under the supervision of John Brazier at the University of Sheffield. This was a quantitative investigation of methods to identify bolt-on dimensions for generic preference-based measures. I decided to do my PhD with John Brazier because while conducting research for my MSc dissertation on quality of life measures I repeatedly came across John’s publications, and I really enjoyed learning from his book. I found the area of measuring and valuing health and wellbeing extremely interesting to me, as it involved multidisciplinary research. Psychometric assessment draws upon psychology to estimate the appropriateness of questionnaires, scales and instruments. This involves considering variables such as attitudes, personality traits and educational levels. At the same time, investigating quality of life and wellbeing measures requires a sound knowledge of the underlying bias of these instruments that derive utilities through direct-elicitation instruments based on the expected utility theory. Last but not least, the output of multi-attribute psychometric assessment has a practical application in managerial sciences, informing health care providers of the preferred instruments to use in different decision-making contexts. This is why, when it came to choosing a PhD, I had no doubts I wanted to work in this area, and that John was the perfect supervisor.

During the first year of the PhD, while conducting a literature review I noticed that all bolt-on studies published to date claimed the relevance of a bolt-on dimension based on experts’ opinion or qualitative methods. Moreover, I noticed differences in the steps undertaken between these studies, which highlighted a lack of methodological guidance. This is why I proposed to compare different quantitative methods in order to inform the identification and selection of bolt-ons. The PhD resulted in 4 papers: An overview of systematic reviews on the validity and responsiveness of 5 generic preference-based measures which has been published in the European Journal of Health Economics; An exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis for identifying bolt-ons, and a regression study on selecting bolt-ons using their ability to predict differences in HRQoL which are published in RnR in Value in Health; and a study on using preferences from discrete choice experiments for selecting bolt-ons. Aspects of the PhD have been presented in numerous international conferences, such as ISPOR, Health Economics Study Group and Advances in Patient-reported outcomes.

My PhD relates to economic evaluations as it provides methods for improving the consistency of decision and the cross-program comparability of health technology assessments. I am thrilled to work on the EuroFIT project, as it will allow me using other quantitative methods for informing decision making in the healthcare sector.”

During the “Increasing physical activity in overweight football fans” symposium at the International Society for Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH) 2018 congress, EuroFIT will present “Development and implementation of the EuroFIT intervention program in 15 professional football clubs across Europe”. ISPAH 2018 aims to bridge the gap between research, policy and practice, bringing a wealth of learning into one place.

The 7th ISPAH meeting will be held at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London from the 15 to 17 October 2018. The meeting is co-hosted by Public Health England and Sport England – two agencies that lead the physical activity and health agenda in England. This forum has three main themes:

addressing inequalities within and through physical activity

evidence into policy and practice to achieve population change

physical activity and the wider determinants of health.

The aim of the EuroFIT presentation will be to describe the development and implementation of the EuroFIT intervention in 15 football clubs across four countries.

http://eurofitfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/static1.squarespace.jpg128815euro_adminhttp://eurofitfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/eurofit_logo_small_340x156.pngeuro_admin2018-05-24 10:09:532018-05-24 10:09:53EuroFIT will present at ISPAH 2018 in London

The study “Effectiveness of European Fans in Training (EuroFIT): randomised controlled trial in England, Portugal, the Netherlands and Norway” by Sally Wyke, C Bunn, E Andersen, J Gill, CM Gray, K Hunt, A McConnachie, F van Nassua, MN da Silva and HP van der Ploeg will be presented at the 62nd Society for Social Medicine meeting which will be held in Glasgow this year. The UK conference runs from the 5-7 September 2018.

The three-day academic and professional conference programme offers a mix of high quality, peer-reviewed oral presentations, posters and workshops and the opportunity for networking. Thematic oral presentations will fall under the categories: Health Inequalities, Health Services Research, Lifecourse, Neighbourhoods & Communities, and Mental Health & Wellbeing.

http://eurofitfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/ssm-logo-with-strapline.png1611200euro_adminhttp://eurofitfp7.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/eurofit_logo_small_340x156.pngeuro_admin2018-05-11 13:22:032018-05-11 18:21:33EuroFIT will feature at Society for Social Medicine conference, Glasgow

The final EuroFIT consortium meeting was hosted by the University of Lisbon in Lisbon on May 8th and 9th 2018. The meeting entailed work package updates, publication planning, presentations on the latest results, discussions on implementation of the project findings, and final reflections and future priorities.

By all accounts, it was an enjoyable and productive meeting! Find the detailed agenda below.

Project Info

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 602170. The material presented and views expressed here are the responsibility of the author(s) only. The EU Commission takes no responsibility for any use made of the information set out.